Header photo credit: Dan Kulpa
John Harrison has been a part of North Carolina’s music scene for long enough to witness it evolve through generations. He’s drummed for The Comas, led North Elementary, shown his visual art around the Triangle, and co-founded the Potluck Foundation label. For decades, he has made music while helping to build the scene that allows others to do the same. “It’s important to be part of something that was here before and will still be here after I’m gone,” he tells me over coffee at Open Eye Cafe in Carrboro.
At 52, Harrison keeps going. His latest record as Jphono1, Gifted Ruins, came out on October 3rd through Honeyguide Collective and Potluck. It finds him in more organic territory, with acoustic guitars, banjos, and pianos taking center stage. The album started small, just a planned 7″ session with a friend and producer Matt Southern. And yet, working together felt so natural that they kept going. The end product is a collection of songs that move between homemade folk and wild, colorful abstractions.
It’s that restless creativity that defines how Harrison works. He tinkers with banjitar ragas and drum machines on solo Jphono1 records. He makes improvisational electronic music as half of Tacoma Park. He helps other artists release music through Potluck. Through it all, curiosity drives him more than rules. “Sometimes it’s nice to change up the way you’ve been doing things,” he says. “Just to stay fresh and keep yourself interested.”
What have you been listening to lately?
John: Water from Your Eyes. A friend of mine recommended them to me a few weeks ago when their new album [It’s a Beautiful Place] came out. The first song on that record is just amazing. I didn’t know what I was listening to the first time I heard it, or if I even liked it or not. But I was intrigued so I kept going back to it. I like the way they are not scared to mix genres within not only songs, but the whole album.
I’ve also been turned on to Tommy Guerrero recently. He was a pro skateboarder and I had no idea he played music. He’s a bass player and his stuff is mostly instrumental, kinda like Beastie Boys and Money Mark vibes.
Also, the new Bitchin Bajas came out, which I think is really great electronic-based music.
Who was the first musician that you remember discovering on your own and obsessing over?
John: I was in the fourth or fifth grade when I got really into The Doors. As a young person, that was the first time I started knowing the names of band members. I read Jim Morrison’s book and just went down the rabbit hole. There was no internet at the time, so I was buying tapes and finding anything I could read about them.
People like to make fun of The Doors or whatever, but I will go to great lengths to explain why I think they’re actually interesting. If you can get past the mythos of Jim Morrison and focus on the music, it’s incredible.
The first band where I felt like it was “my music” was the Beastie Boys. License to Ill came out when I first could buy music. I felt connected to it. That era of rap in general had a profound effect on me. It’s why I ended up wanting to play drums. I didn’t know about samples, I just liked the beats.
When did you start playing drums?
John: It’s funny, there was always a piano in my house, but nobody played it. It was like a furniture piano. I don’t know, maybe they bought it hoping that one of the kids would play it. I was always attracted to it, but nobody in my family played instruments. I didn’t grow up in an artsy environment. My parents were blue collar, just trying to make a living and survive.
As I got older, I messed around on the piano a lot. When I got attracted to beat and drums, I would do the cliche thing of setting up pots and pans. My parents weren’t going to buy a drum set, especially in the small house I grew up in. So I had friends with drums in their garages or basements and I would play anytime I was around it.
It wasn’t until I was in college that I sold my baseball card collection for a set of drums.
Image credit: Luke Diasio
What was your experience getting pulled into music in college?
John: I was fortunate enough to be around a lot of really good songwriters. Even though I had no real intention to write songs, to be a better drummer, I wanted to understand songwriting. Around that time, I wanted to express myself in other ways than just on the drums. So I naively started writing songs. They weren’t great, but they were my introduction to self-expression in a creative way.
When I first started playing, I think I was appreciating the creativity without it being super conscious. I also liked being around my friends and the social aspects of it. After a few years, I was writing more songs and focusing on what I enjoyed hearing.
When did you first start performing live?
John: It was during my freshman year of college. I went to UNC Wilmington and they had a concert near the dorms with bands playing on a flatbed truck. [laughs] The band I was in got asked to play, so we did it. Before that the only music I had played in front of people was trombone in the middle school band.
What brought to the Triangle from UNCW?
John: I was up here a lot through the 90s because most touring bands were coming to the Triangle, not Wilmington. In 1997, I was in a band that released a record before deciding to move to Carrboro. Because if we were ever going to play shows, we needed to be somewhere that didn’t take two hours to get anywhere. It was more feasible to play shows and there were more places to play.
How has the local music scene evolved over that stretch of time?
John: There’s been ebbs and flows, but the short answer is it’s not much different. This area and community has always been supportive of artists. There’s infrastructure with clubs like The Cave, Local 506, and Cat’s Cradle. Some of the places have come and gone in cities like Durham and Raleigh, but there’s always been venues. Today you’ve got Slim’s, Kings, Motorco, and The Pinhook.
I don’t yearn for days of early Superchunk or Polvo. I’m glad that was there, but I’m happy to be here now and doing my part of it. I’ve learned so much from people who have done this or were doing it before. At 52, I’ve been doing this for a long time now and want to pass along some of the things I was shown and learned, too.
That’s why I started the Potluck record collective. We help bands put out their music instead of doing it all themselves. It’s important to be part of something that was here before and will still be here after I’m gone. I like to think that I help sustain it in that way because it has given me a lot to identify with.
Image credit: picsbypaytt
Gifted Ruins started as a 7″ session with Matt Southern but evolved into a full album. What was it about that collaborative process that made you want to keep going?
John: Potluck helped Matt put out some of the earlier Matt Southern and Lost Gold records before they started up Honeyguide Collective. I’ve always liked talking with Matt because he asks questions about things that aren’t just music. We’ve developed a friendship, and I’ve played some on one of his records.
Although I have a studio and record some myself, sometimes it’s nice to change up the way you’ve been doing things. Just to stay fresh and keep yourself interested. I had these two songs I was playing live, and they didn’t really fit into any album or anything. Starting with “this will be a seven-inch” keeps the idea manageable without being overwhelming.
I really thought that’s what it was going to be. I figured I’d go over to Matt’s, it would be fun, and these songs would have a purpose because I wanted to share them. But then it’s so easy working together, and Matt was proactive with his ideas. So we start recording these songs, we’re learning from each other and trying different things, and then we decide to collaborate on a song.
Now, this thing’s stretching into being an album as I write another song or two. It was so much fun to collaborate on something from nothing, just sitting there with a banjo and a guitar, sketching it out.
How does your creative process typically go when you’re working solo?
John: There’s a balance between “What have I been attracted to?”, “What have I been connecting with?”, and “What do I want to try to express or say, whether it’s through an instrumental or through actual lyrics?” If you know how to write a song, it’s exciting to understand how you can start playing within that structure, not necessarily to meet standard expectations.
On this record, there are some normal songs and some not-normal ones. So I start thinking like that, too. For example, there are three piano excerpts on the record, which were part of one improv piece. I had no idea what we were doing when we wrote it; we were just being creative.
Who are some of your favorite local/North Carolina artists?
John: I really like Matt Southern and Lost Gold. They’re a great band. Their last album’s awesome. It leans a little guitar jammy in a way that I’m really liking.
I like Stray Owls a lot. They’re this ramshackle folk, psychedelic weirdo band from Mebane. I’ve played a lot of shows with them. They walk this line that I really like: “Are they even good? Or are they geniuses? Can they even play their instruments well? Or are they just so good at it that it doesn’t matter what they play on it?” In my world, that’s a high compliment. I really like that aesthetic.
I really like Verity Den, they’re great. BANGZZ just released their new record; Potluck put out their first LP and I like this one even more. They’re amazing and to see their journey has been awesome. Also, Thank You, Partner, they’re great and part of the Honeyguide Collective.
I’m still a real big fan of Caltrop. They were a very heavy band. Another older one that’s sort of adjacent to that is Kerbloki, just a great rap and electronic group, but with live drums and bass.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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